Does the Shove Guv need to show a little love?

posted at 2:41 pm on January 22, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

The “Shove Guv” is the Boss Emeritus’ name for Andrew Cuomo, the New York Governor who declared pro-lifers too extreme for the entire state of New York. Cuomo later claimed that his words had been distorted by the New York Post, which apparently made the mistake of quoting him accurately. Michelle Malkin demolishes this response and pretty much everything else Cuomo said on the matter as well, and advises the governor to pay attention to today’s March for Life — and history:

Cuomo also has set himself up for an unforgettable schooling by hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers who are gathering in Washington, D.C., this week for the41st annual March for Life. “I am guessing that Andrew Cuomo’s remarks are going to be repeated by every speaker on the platform,” Stasia Zoladz Vogel, president of the Buffalo Regional Right to Life Committee, predicted in the Buffalo News before the Wednesday march.

As for Cuomo’s reckless dismissal of what he considers an “extreme” minority, a recent poll of New Yorkers showed that the vast majority “support sensible restrictions on abortions, with 80 percent opposing unlimited abortion through the ninth month of pregnancy and 75 percent opposing changes in current law so that someone other than a doctor can perform an abortion.” Contrary to Cuomo’s distorted view, the 21st-century pro-life movement is a diverse convergence of increasingly young and minority activists, feminist pro-lifers, independents and social conservatives. And contrary to Cuomo’s reckless telling of history, pro-life activism is ingrained in New York history.

The suffragists who famously met at Seneca Falls, N.Y., were ardent advocates for life. They didn’t mince words. Elizabeth Cady Stanton condemned the “murder of children, either before or after birth.” Alice Paul, who crusaded for the Equal Rights Amendment, called abortion “the ultimate exploitation of women.” Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, as Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser pointed out in her review of pro-life feminism, was horrified by the abortion industry and the women who enabled it:

“The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honorable term ‘female physician’ should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women.”

Now we know where Andrew Cuomo would have stood had he been around when pro-life suffragists came knocking on New York’s doors: blocking their way.

Jonah Goldberg takes a more sarcastic swipe at Cuomo, noting that while the media likes to think of “liberal intolerance” as an oxymoron, it’s more the rule now:

It’s an interesting — and repugnant — tautology: Extremists hold extreme views, and we can identify extreme views by the fact they are held by extremists.

Of course, Cuomo frames the matter to his benefit. Opposing same-sex marriage — the mainstream Democratic position not long ago — is now anti-gay. Being in favor of gun rights is pro–assault weapon (whatever that means).

Most vexing and revealing, however, is that Cuomo doesn’t even bother to wrap opposition to abortion in scary adjectives. Simply believing in a right to life is extremist, and such extremists have “no place in the state of New York.” Cuomo claims that he was being taken out of context. He was talking about “extreme” Republican politicians, not average citizens. Fair enough.

Still, given that Cuomo is the scion of one of the most famously Catholic families in America, it’s a pretty remarkable statement.

Imagine how much smoke would emanate from the liberal outrage machine if, say, Texas governor Rick Perry said that “extremist” Democrats who support gun control or gay marriage or abortion rights “have no place in the great state of Texas.”

However, in his “clarification” of his earlier remarks, Cuomo did change “right to lifers” to “anti-choicers.” He may have missed that trick once, but Cuomo wasn’t going to miss another opportunity to use loaded language at those who support the pro-life position.

Last week two outrageously anti-Catholic outbursts took place in the public forum. The first was an article in U.S. News and World Report by syndicated columnist Jamie Stiehm. Ms. Stiehm argued that the Supreme Court was dangerously packed with Catholics, who have, she averred, a terribly difficult time separating church from state and who just can’t refrain from imposing their views on others. Her meditations were prompted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s granting some legal breathing space to the Little Sisters of the Poor, who were objecting to the provisions of the HHS mandate. As even a moment’s thoughtful consideration would reveal, this decision hadn’t a thing to do with the intrusion of the “church” into the state, in fact just the contrary. Moreover, the appeal of American citizens (who happen to be Catholic nuns) and the decision of a justice of the Supreme Court in no way constitute an “imposition” on anyone. The very irrationality of Stiehm’s argument is precisely what has led many to conclude that her column was prompted by a visceral anti-Catholicism which stubbornly persists in our society.

The second eruption of anti-Catholicism was even more startling. In the course of a radio interview, Governor Andrew Cuomo blithely declared that anyone who is pro-life on the issue of abortion or who is opposed to gay marriage is “not welcome” in his state of New York. Mind you, the governor did not simply say that such people are wrong-headed or misguided; he didn’t say that they should be opposed politically or that good arguments against their position should be mounted; he said they should be actively excluded from civil society! As many commentators have already pointed out, Governor Cuomo was thereby excluding roughly half of the citizens of the United States and, presumably, his own father, Mario Cuomo, who once famously declared that he was personally opposed to abortion. Again, the very hysterical quality of this statement suggests that an irrational prejudice gave rise to it. …

That a governor of a major state — one of the chief executives in our country — could call for the exclusion of pro-lifers and those opposed to gay marriage suggests that the law could be used to harass, restrict, and, at the limit, attack Catholics. Further, the attitude demonstrated by the son of Mario Cuomo suggests that there is a short path indeed from the privatization of Catholic moral convictions to the active attempt to eliminate those convictions from the public arena.

Indeed. And this is, in large part, why the March for Life takes place around the country on the anniversary of Roe v Wade and why we do not remain silent in the public sphere about the nature of abortion. We are called to live our faith and our principles, not to practice it only within the four walls of a church. We will not get shoved aside, or silenced — not by Cuomo, or anyone else.

Blowback

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Cuomo nicely displayed his OWN EXTREMISM in his hatred of free speach! Whatever Presidential dream he may have once had are now ‘gone with the internet’.

Freddy on January 22, 2014 at 2:45 PM

You can’t seriously believe that. Democrats don’t get held to what they’ve said or done in the past. And far too many “good Catholics” who oppose abortion will also vote for the Democrat no matter what. I understand the theological implications but the RCC would do right by beginning to ex-communicate these “Catholic” politicians that vote for, fund, and otherwise support abortion.

I note that Cuomo changed the terms he used from “pro-lifers” to “anti- choicers” in an obvious effort to paint those who are pro life as being anti something. It’s not a very subtle tactic. The Left likes to call their tactic of changing rhetoric or brand ‘nuance’.

Conservatives have a term for that sort of ‘nuance’, too. It’s the same term we’ve always used, and we recognize it when we see it. We call it ‘manure’.

It’s amazing the breathtaking speed the left has moved from Obama being against SSM only 2 years ago to being against SSM means you are not fit to be in civilized society.

And the SSM advocates think that we are the ones who are insane for worrying about a slippery slope? What’s it going to be like two years from now, at this same rate? Public executions of Catholic Bishops? Mandatory sodomy laws?

magine how much smoke would emanate from the liberal outrage machine if, say, Texas governor Rick Perry said that “extremist” Democrats who support gun control or gay marriage or abortion rights “have no place in the great state of Texas.”

This Texan would be just fine with that. Hey if Cuomo can say it I can say it. I’m tired of these extremist left wingers getting away with it.

Given the left’s movement from speaking out against religion to bullying via regulation and legislation, how long can it be before they progress to actually holding Bible-burning rallies and protests outside of houses of worship? I suspect it’s not far off.

Given the left’s movement from speaking out against religion to bullying via regulation and legislation, how long can it be before they progress to actually holding Bible-burning rallies and protests outside of houses of worship? I suspect it’s not far off.

BKeyser on January 22, 2014 at 3:23 PM

Dems already have a history of burning churches and crosses in peoples’ front yards.

What a shock, an Obama supporter who follows the fine Kennedy tradition of forcing himself on women wants to make sure he can get rid of the evidence.

Then again, seeing how the typical Obama Party woman is a gold digger like Wendy Davis and Michelle Obama who only wants to milk baby daddy for all they’re worth, you can see why Obama Party politicians are so pro-abortion.

We are called to live our faith and our principles, not to practice it only within the four walls of a church. We will not get shoved aside, or silenced — not by Cuomo, or anyone else.

Nor will they leave NY State and the Governor should be thankful they won’t. The truth is while the Gov. is socially very far left he is a realtive (for NY State anyway) fiscal moderate; recognizing that he cannot kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Note his opposition to Deblasio’s tax the rich til the pips squeak proposal. However, he lets the GOP State Senate take the fall as to why some fiscal prudence must be followed when he is dealing with the left progressive base. He could have arranged for the Senate to be controlled by the Dems as they had a majority of seats but he quietly acquiesced to 5 Dems supporting Dean Skelos, the GOP Senate leader, to head the Senate. The Dem party leadership there was too radical and too corrupt (not to mention variously under investigation or indictment and seemingly incapable of doing the nuts and bolts work of the Senate.)

Thus Cuomo relies on the GOP to get state business done, take the blame for radical fiscal agendas not getting passed and to serve as rhetorical whipping boys to please the people he has to appeal to to win a Democratic Party Presidential nomination. Thus, the invitation for Republicans to leave is silly not just because much of the wealth in the state and taxes are generated by the portion of the State population that votes for GOP candidates, he needs the GOP politically as well as financially.

Dictators don’t want dissent. They want conformity and if Cuomo’s governorship of New York tell us anything it is that he is both despotic and intolerant.

Along with his useful idiots, the NY Legislature, he passed the SAFE Act in the dead of night so citizens could not comment or show their very prominent dissatisfaction. When you consider the original conversations during NY’s Constitutional approval mused about citizens having a year to review new legislation, because anything less would be tyrannical, you see how far the state has fallen.

Take a deeper look at how Cuomo continues to evade the NY constitutional limits on spending by unloading debt to agencies, and then not counting them as liabilities, and you will begin to get the picture.

People and businesses are already leaving the state in record numbers. So Cuomo plays largely to an audience who votes based on handouts and receiving the largess of government gained at the expense of our productive citizens and businesses.

But if one looks at the realities of a modern world where no company or person really needs to be in NY- you get a glimpse of the future and none of it is good. To paraphrase a quote- “pretty soon Cuomo is going to run out of other people money”. Then the real downturn begins for NY. People like their freedoms and that not only includes the freedom to keep what they’ve earned, but to have beliefs which may not comport with the governors. Good riddance.